David Kenny - The debate about legalising cannabis is stone mad

It might have been the greatest economic plan ever conceived. Then again, it might not. Last week, I suggested raffling the country's toxic assets to raise money. I suggested we call this lottery The Blotto. As stupid ideas go, I thought it couldn't be beaten. It has.

Labour's Emmet Stagg has now suggested that the government legalise cannabis and tax it. The country should go from stoney broke to stoned and broke. Hurray.

Last Tuesday, he debated the idea with campaigner Grainne Kenny of Europe Against Drugs. 'Debate' is not the right word – it was more of a 'scrap'. Grainne lit into him, firing off facts about health, etc, while Emmet countered by calling her a fanatic.

He said he didn't know of anyone who died from cannabis use and that "drinking too much milk" is bad for you. Grainne boiled over, accusing him of not having done any research.

He called her a dictator. Grainne dug into him again. At the end, it was clear that, in Stagg's mind, he had beaten the 'mad oul wan' (my words, not his).

The mad oul wan is my mother, by the way. She told me she was annoyed with herself for losing her temper. As a hack, I've never commented on the drugs debate or defended Grainne before – she's capable of defending herself.

I will say, though, that her passion comes from the experience of quietly helping families with drugs problems. She sees hardships that most politicians only read about.

To tell you the truth, the drugs debate is not something I lie awake thinking about. I have other things to worry about – like paying bills. Stagg's comments have forced me to go on the record here and give an opinion. It's just that, an opinion, and it may be wrong. I don't agree with legalisation. This is not because the mammy says drugs are bad for me, but because I believe it's illogical.

I drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and I accept the evidence that both are bad for me. I would expect anybody who smokes dope or promotes its legalisation to say the same.

Cannabis abusers, for example, run the risk of becoming psychotic. Here's a statistic: the number of teens presenting with mental health problems rose 22% (between April 2003/2004) after the UK downgraded cannabis. It has since 'upgraded' it again. As Stagg points out, this country already has problems with alcohol and tobacco.

Department of Health figures released last week show that one in five of us have been assaulted by a drunk. Over a quarter of us binge drink once a week. Cigarette smoking kills 7,000 people a year according to the Irish Cancer Society. Cannabis also intoxicates and can cause lung cancer. Where is the logic in legalising it, and increasing its usage, when we already have a problem with legal drugs?

Why would a government that is effectively outlawing cigarettes legalise cannabis? To beat the drug dealers? That's illogical too. The dealers will just sell other drugs. Do we then legalise cocaine? Or ecstasy? Or heroin?

At what age can you start smoking cannabis? Stoners don't generally make good students, so do we limit its use to those who have finished secondary school? Age restriction doesn't work with alcohol, so it won't work with cannabis. Do we bother with age restriction at all?

How much cannabis can you smoke before you are legally intoxicated? How many units/joints will put you over the limit? Will we have a 'joint' Oireachtas committee to look into all of this?

Of course, not all cannabis smokers will become psychotic or get cancer. They won't all graduate to heroin. The fact remains, however, that some will. Cannabis is not a harmless drug and anyone who says it is is either lying or hasn't done their research.

We need a debate on this issue by people who know what they're talking about. Stagg's contribution, last Tuesday, was devoid of any revelations other than "too much milk's bad for you". Children of Ireland, put down the Avonmore and toke on this. I suppose it will be our patriotic duty to get stoned, seeing as how we're doing it for the economy.

Stagg sounds like a man who has heard the words 'election' and 'coalition' blowing in the wind. He wants to raise his profile with young voters and win a portfolio before he retires. If not, and he really believes his drug tax will help the economy, then we can forget about ever electing a credible alternative to this government.

Every day we learn more about the ineptitude that has left us facing a future full of social problems, like rising drug abuse. The country needs hope. We need to know that someone out there has a solution. We don't need Stagg's nonsensical economics undermining that hope.

Eamon Gilmore must now clarify where his party stands on the only issue that concerns me and thousands of prospective voters today – the economy. Is Labour in favour of taxing drugs to fix it? Is that the best your party has to offer us? Is that it?

God help us if it is.

dkenny@tribune.ie

April 19, 2009

Comments

#1 David Raynes commented, on April 20, 2009 at 12:26 a.m.:

The last thing Irland needs is to get more stoned. This was suggested to Obama, Obama laughed and as someone said, it is no laughing matter. He laughed I think not at the question but at the sheer silliness of people who
want cannabis legalised, at the irrationality that lies behind the call.
Much of the legalisation argument is founded on falsity. Cannabis, particularly low CBD cannabis, has all the harms of tobacco and much
more. Tobacco and alcohol as legal drugs (in most countries) cause far more personal and social harm than all the illegal drugs put together.
The trivialisation of cannabis harms has been going on for too long, the normalisation and legalisation of this substance would inevitably lead to MORE USE, more use means, without any doubt, MORE personal and social harm as night follows day. So legalisation would not reduce that harm, it would on the hard evidence of the tobacco/alcohol model, increase it.
The second string of the argument is that illegal drugs are a gift to organised crime and that legalisation would remove that gift. This is a
naive or dishonest argument. Illegal sales can always undercut legal sales by price, legal sales would allow crime to produce something
“stronger”, regulations around age of purchase would encourage crime to target those excluded by age. Legalisation would produce counterfeit
(cheaper) product, the application of any tax at all would encourage crime-to avoid that tax. The end result of legalised cannabis would be
more consumption, by more people, for more of their lives. All that amounts to much more harm. Just as we have with tobacco and alcohol. If
anyone doubts what I say I ask them to consider the personal and social harm from alcohol in those countries where use is culturally or
religiously taboo and to compare with similar sized societies where use is allowed and normalised. So why did Obama laugh? I suggest he knows the truth of what I speak, he knows that the tide of scientific opinion continues to move against the safety and harms of cannabis. he knows that the UK has only recently because of that social and personal harm and at the request of our National Director of Mental Health,
reclassified cannabis to a more serious drug, (where it historically was under our system). We, have rejected the nonesense of the pothead and
stoner lobby. So should Ireland & the USA. You should get off your drugs and get back to work. Your country is in an economic hole, do not keep digging. You have traditionally been what we call grafters, not afraid of hard work. Cannabis is not called "dope" for nothing.

Posted by David Raynes

#2 John J. Coleman, PhD commented, on April 20, 2009 at 3:47 a.m.:

It took only 150 years for someone to re-think the mistake of James Bruce, aka Lord Elgin. In 1858, the second of two bloody “opium wars” between Great Britain and China was drawing to a close with the forced signing of the Treaty of Tianjin. The Chinese, who had fought to prohibit shipments of British opium, were required by the treaty to impose a tax on opium. This had the immediate effect of legalizing its importation. The tax revenue was to be used in part to care for opium addicts. In reality, the opium tax provided an incentive for Chinese farmers to develop a domestic supply of locally produced opium that could be sold untaxed and cheaper than the taxed imports. In 1893, Queen Victoria, responding to growing criticism over the Asian opium trade, formed a Royal Commission to study the issue. In its report to the Queen whose titles included Empress of India, the Commission concluded that, “the temperate use of opium in India should be viewed in the same light as the temperate use of alcohol in England.” The Commission largely ignored the effect of the opium trade on China. Less than five years later, The Times of London reported that an estimated 70 percent of adult males in China used opium. By then, two violent and bloody conflicts waged because of the opium trade had failed to stop what some historians have called “the addiction of one empire and the corruption of another.” Not until the middle of the 20th century and enforcement of the harsh anti-drug policies of Mao Zedong was China able to free itself of opium addiction. Whatever pittance of tax revenue might have been raised over the years by Lord Elgin’s cruel treaty hoax to legalize opium in China was long since gone. Ireland need not follow the same path by legalizing and taxing cannabis, a substance that can cause serious and lasting psychosis. The mortality and morbidity attributed to legal drugs such as beverage alcohol and tobacco should convince even the most skeptical among us that releasing yet another demon in the form of cannabis is not the proper thing to do.

John J. Coleman, PhD
President
Drug Watch International, Inc. (www.drugwatch.org)

#3 Dr Chris Luke, Cork commented, on April 20, 2009 at 3:58 p.m.:

In fact, (and in addition to the sound deconstruction of Emmett Stagg's fatuous case for the legalisation of cannabis), it is highly likely that marijuana is responsible for many deaths every year. These obviously include road traffic deaths where driver impairment by substance misuse is a causative factor (at least 7% in a recent French study). But they also involve the homicides associated - mostly - with urban teenage knife crime in the UK. A recent radio piece on Radio 4 in the UK included a vox pop featuring a teenage murderer talking glibly about how he "had had a few spliffs on the top of the bus" before "sticking" (i.e. lethally stabbing) a complete stranger.

And arguably what is most deficient in the entire debate about "decriminalising" cannabis is its role in extreme and often unprovoked violence. Sadly, many adults of Stagg’s vintage remain deluded that cannabis is virtually medicinal, and ignore the drastic changes in cannabis culture since their heyday (usually the 1970’s): the proportion of UK and Irish teenagers smoking cannabis has risen towards three-quarters in many (metropolitan) parts; the “strength” of cannabis has risen extraordinarily through horticultural (“genetic”) modification; and the scientific evidence for cognitive and mental harm has accumulated inexorably over the past three decades.

My professional experience on the healthcare (emergency department) frontline convinces me that cannabis is a common ingredient in both teenage violence and car crashes. But for now we lack the definitive proof - toxicology screening after all crashes involving injury, and after all arrests for violent disorder and worse. If such screening were to be introduced, I think we might hear less nonsense advanced about how harmless smoking marijuana is. Indeed, the very same ageing hippies who spout evidence-free rubbish about its legalisation, would speedily recognise that (like the smuggled tobacco which kills more people in the UK each year than all “illegal” drugs combined) the harm caused by cannabis has nothing to do with the law, it is purely biological and - for those affected - can be utterly hellish.

#4 A Flood commented, on April 24, 2009 at 2:14 p.m.:

I agree with the article and the comments above.
We already have enough legal drugs without tipping the boat over entirely by legalising a whole load of other ones too.

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